SHILLONG, Jan 30: The Shillong Club Limited (SCL) has landed into controversy after a member of the club filed an FIR, questioning alleged manipulation in the conduct of the election of the Board of Directors (BoDs).
The police investigation into the controversy has already started. The SCL has, however, denied the allegations made by its member, Shakti Laitphlang, who had unsuccessfully contested the elections.
Laitphlang also alleged that voting on the day was manipulated against him. The problem, he stated, was in the one-time passwords (OTPs) that were meant to be sent to the members to enable them to cast their votes.
He alleged that the software was being controlled by the Club and can be easily tweaked as per their requirements.
Laitphlang further alleged that many members contacted him directly to say that they had not received their individual OTP and/or faced problems accessing the e-voting portal. Despite that, votes were cast in their names, he told the police.
It has been alleged that the creator of the voting portal was in administrative control of the portal throughout the election process, thereby controlling the entire elections and naturally had full and free access to the portal.
Meanwhile, the Club management has filed a counter-FIR after the police had commenced the investigation on Laitphlang’s FIR.
In the counter-FIR by a member, who is also an advocate, it is alleged that Laitphlang induced him into parting with the OTP during the elections whereas he intended to vote for a team of his choice of which Laitphlang was not part of.
It was further alleged that the BoD consists of seven members comprising Hector Marwein, Suzie Syiem, Dr Werlok Kharshiing, DD Laloo, Shyam Singhania, Suresh Prasad Singh, PS Sehdave and Ajay Singhania.
It is alleged that the management is actually controlled by the latter four. Threats of expulsion from the club are common. In fact, some years ago, Ajoy Nongrum was also expelled from the Club on frivolous grounds for lack of allegiance to the group.
Meanwhile, the Club Management on January 14 took disciplinary action against Laitphlang by barring his entry into the Club premises and suspended his privileges without giving him an opportunity to be heard.
Reacting to these allegations, SCL Director in-charge, General Administration and Legal Affairs, PS Sehdave, said that the question of manipulating elections does not arise since the vendor from Kolkata had conducted the online elections in the past.
Sehdave also claimed that it is a very transparent online system which was passed by the Annual General Meeting (AGM). According to him, the election committee appointed by the previous Board of Directors (BoDs) comprised Chiranjib Choudhury as chairman and Kiran Joshi, Dr Kamaljeet Sehdave and Kailash Verma as members.
When asked about the generation of the OTPs for casting of the votes, PS Sehdave said that the OTPs for casting their votes online are automatically generated by the software and they have no control over this.
“We have converted the election of the BoDs through online voting and do away with the proxy voting. Not a single member has questioned the exercise. It is only this time that someone has raised the question. There is no truth or ground on the allegations which he has made,” Sehdave said.
To a question that the BoDs are being run by two or three people, he said that such allegations have no basis as all the board members have specific roles and responsibilities assigned to them.
“I do not any problem if the members continue to elect the same people on rotation basis,” Sehdave said.
Meanwhile, he said that the Club Management took time to file the counter-FIR since the new BoDs had to take care of different responsibilities.
“It is not in the interest of the Board to file a counter-FIR on its members. We are still in the process of having an internal inquiry. The Board also wanted the police to know that one member has filed an FIR alleging many things which are fictitious. We want to share with the police the other side of the story,” Sehdave said, while also denying that a member of the Club management had tried to stop police from investigating the case based on the FIR filed by Laitphlang.
“It is good that he has gone to the police and an FIR has been filed. Let the entire election process be verified by the police and let the police come out with their findings. Let the truth prevail. It will only help us to improve our image further and also prove beyond reasonable doubt that we have not indulged in any kind of manipulation,” Sehdave said.
The IT Cell of the police is already on the job to find out whether the vendor had indulged in such manipulation.